Gaming, Unboxings, Interviews, Ramblings, Other Things

Bad & Annoying YouTube Practices

What up everybody NeroTheHero here and today I wanted to do a video that’s a little different from my normal content. Well it’s not that different from my usual content, this is still a ramble, however this one isn’t going to necessarily be gaming-related. It’s going to be more YouTube related more than anything else.

Today on the LoDown I will be talking about bad and annoying YouTube practices. Now I’m not a professional YouTuber or Entertainer by any stretch of the imagination. I have a humble little YouTube channel where I have just under four hundred subscribers, however I am a consumer of YouTube content. and as a consumer of YouTube content there are certain practices that I see content creators utilizing that I find particularly annoying and I’m sure some of you will find them annoying as well.

So while you’re watching or listening to this video just think to yourself; are there any practices that you see your favorite content creators doing that you find annoying? Just think about it while you watch the video. Now without further ado let’s get into it.

Premature Solicitation

Aside from sounding funny, premature solicitation is a huge problem and that’s not just an issue with YouTube, it’s something that is a problem with pretty much anything that you can solicit if you’re in sales, if you’re a marketer and especially if you do content creation.

Ever clicked on to a video only to have the content creator in question ask you for likes, shares, and subscribes before the video has really even officially began? I have, and I don’t like it. that’s the number one way to guarantee me to click off your video is to ask me to like comment and subscribe before you even get into the actual content. In this day and age where we have the internet and information is readily accessible with the touch of a button, there’s a plethora of other options out there, and if somebody doesn’t like the way your videos begins, there’s nothing stopping them from clicking off and going somewhere else.

The best way to rectify this? Do that at the end of the video instead of the beginning.

Self Limitation

A lot of YouTube content creators limit themselves as far as their content. While it’s good to have a niche and a theme of your Channel, if you expect to grow especially if you have a young Channel, it’s good to vary your content in order to see how your potential audience will respond to it. Interestingly enough despite me having a microscopic YouTube channel I get people with significantly more subscribers than me asking how to get more views and how to grow their Channel. I simply tell them to very their contents and branch out a little bit, only to get the rebuttal of “…But my channel is all about gaming, gaming is my life I love gaming. I just want to upload gaming videos I also don’t know what kind of content I would do otherwise.”

Look I get it, you love video games and you love playing video games and that’s what you want to share with YouTube and your audience. But there comes a point to where YouTube is either a hobby for you or it’s a job, an occupation, or a possible career path for you. Which means that your YouTube channel isn’t just a YouTube channel anymore… its budding business. In order to run a successful business you need to be able to figure out how to properly market yourself and your content to your audience or potential audience, and you can’t do that by sticking with one type of content, you just can’t. There are some exceptions to this rule… not even really a rule but anyways that aside, while there are some exceptions to this there aren’t a lot of exceptions to this so the likelihood that you’ll just go viral one day it’s it’s not the chances are not high let’s just say that.

So how do you keep yourself from limiting yourself? That’s easy, just make various types of content it can still be gaming-related or it can still have a main focus, whatever that may be. If you do let’s plays, maybe try game review or and unboxing or walk through or a podcast about your favorite game… There’s lots of ways to vary your content while still keeping a main focus for your Channel.

Expecting Rapid Change

We live in an age of instant gratification where information is readily available at the click of a button. For some reason it’s brought about this mindset that change will happen instantly when it comes to your YouTube channel your content. So you have a channel and you’re not getting as many comments or shares or likes as you would like to. What would be the best way to go about inspiring people to like comment and share your videos? Do you:

A – Come up with a consistent call to action that asks for your viewers to like comment share and subscribe?

B – Upload a single video asking people to engage more? Or

C – Develop multiple calls to action depending on the type of Engagement you want on your video by tracking the type of response that particular video gets?

Ideally you want to do C. I’ve seen several content creators upload a single video that says “Hey guys make sure you comment more on all my videos in general, or hey guys make sure you share my videos it really helps me out” They only upload one video that focuses on this. I understand that you want to draw attention to a particular outcome of your channel that you would like to improve, However it’s going to be a lot more difficult to obtain that from a single upload. Some of the most successful marketing campaigns are about repetition without being annoying. You need to have a consistent message that gets repeated that doesn’t annoy your viewers and will also Inspire them to engage with your content. At the same time you also don’t want to sound like you’re just begging for views and likes and subscribers it just comes off as desperate.

One of the absolute best things I can think of the start with is to just think of a question that you want to ask your viewers at the end of your video then ask them to respond to it in the comments… boom there you go you got engagement right their. Comments to me are better than likes and subscribers because you want to know why let me tell you… People can like your video once and they can subscribed to your channel once but they can comment an infinite number of times. Just think about that.

Aspect Vs. Outcome

In my various talks with fellow content creators I’ve asked one simple question… what’s one aspect of your channel you’d like to improve? The answer I often get is views or subscribers or engagement. This is a backwards way to think about it.

Likes, views, comments and subscribers… those are all outcomes, those are the result of something, the output. The only way to change the output of something is to change the input of something. If people aren’t engaging with one particular type of video that you’re doing, try out a different type of video or format for that video. This goes back to the self-limitation aspect that I covered moments ago. when it comes to commercials on network television in what not, marketing campaigns goes through various iterations before they get to the end result what you see on your TV. Even then, commercials get changed, stuff gets added things get taken out etc etc. This is because successful marketing involves making changes based on how your audience response in order to garner a positive change in the future. So don’t put the cart before the horse… you want to think about what you can do about your content so you can better affect the outcome which will be your likes comments and subscriptions.

Mass Tagging

I’m sure most of you know one person on your perspective social media platform will upload a new video and then tag 20 to 30 people in that tweet. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a video that you’re interested in all that matters is that they needlessly tag you in this social media post. (sigh)

It’s especially annoying when it’s somebody who you don’t even have that much contact with, and the only time you ever see or hear anything from them is when their tagging you in a video that you don’t have any interest in watching. There’s a little bit of premature solicitation thrown into this point as, well simply because they’re just making the grand assumption that not only are you going to watch this video but you’re going to re-share it with everybody who follows you. So if you do this if you tag 20 people in a single post when you have a new video, first of all I get it you’re excited to share your video and you want people to share… However simply tagging them in a post and saying hey sure this video is not the way to get them to share your video it’s just not.

Sweating Over Numbers

This one is probably the most common, and I run into it more and more as I meet more and more content creators. I’ll often get a DM or a see a tweet in my feed that is a content creator that is distraught over a small change in their subscriber base or the fact that one of their videos didn’t get as many views as they would have liked. I get it you love your channel and you really like what you do you, love up loading content, and you love sharing it with the world…. Obviously subscribers and views is a number that you want to increase over time and not decrease or stay stagnant.

However it’s never (to my knowledge) helped to worry or be concerned over the fact that you lost two or three subscribers over the course of a day. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter that much, does it? Is it worth pondering over and trying to figure out what you did to make those two or three people not want to be subscribed to your channel anymore? They could have been inactive accounts or bought accounts that got deleted by the system. You’ll never really know and trying to figure out what happened is it’s just going to be a waste of your time. Also it’s not the end of the world your life will go on I guarantee it.

Now I want to know what you think in the comments below tell me what you see as a bad or annoying YouTube practice. Have you ran into anything like what I’ve mentioned in this video?

That’s it for this one guys. I’m going to get out of here now, until we meet again take care of yourselves and each other, do something heroic today, and demand something better in gaming… always. This is NeroTheHero signing out …peace!